Thursday, March 19, 2009

SWEDE LEADS SOMALI INSURGENTS

Yassin Ali was released on June 11th, 2008 after spending more than three months in custody last year following his arrest in a joint raid carried out by Swedish and Norwegian security police.

He and two other men were suspected of having sent money to al-Shabaab (‘The Party of Youth’), a Somalia-based Islamist insurgent group with ties to al-Qaeda.

Al-Shabaab has been designated as a terrorist organization by the United States and is considered a terrorist group by both the Swedish and Norwegian security police.

One of the men was released shortly after the February arrests, while Ali and a second man remained in custody as prosecutors continued to build their case.

But Swedish prosecutor Ronnie Jacobsson eventually closed the case in September 2008 without filing formal charges, saying he had been unable to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the men had sent money to finance terror groups in Somalia.

Yassin Ali's terrorism connections now seem to be beyond doubt. So why was he released?

Per Gudmundson, an editorial writer with SvD who has written extensively about Swedish terror connections in Somalia, says it’s regrettable that Swedish authorities weren’t able to build a case against Ali and prevent him from returning to Somalia to participate in more violence.

“Part of the problem is that the Swedish security services, law enforcement, and prosecutors don’t have the resources to carry out the costly and time consuming work of tracing money all the way back to al-Shabaab,” he told The Local.

“Of course, they also operate with the goal of preventing crimes from taking place in Sweden, and don’t have the legal tools to prevent crimes from occurring abroad.”